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First things first: that title doesn’t quite add up. The acts have quite clearly been booked. When Metro caught Brian Hennigan’s nasty comedy brainchild The Unbookables, that night’s host, Jon Richardson, was joined by Jim Jeffries, Steve Hughes and Unbookables residents Sean Rouse and Doug Stanhope; that’s three out of four comics with Fringe shows, making extra festival cash through appearances at other late-night shindigs. They’re hardly struggling to get a spot; Jeffries is a Jongleurs’ favourite, for Chrissake.

Yet Hennigan’s got an ace up his sleeve and, surprisingly, it isn’t Stanhope, it’s Rouse, a man who has sold his black soul to Satan in exchange for the power to make people laugh and feel reviled at the same time. At some point, every comedian dies on stage, yet few are likely to actually die onstage. Severely arthritic, Rouse might well pop his clogs before your very eyes, but first he’s going to use his illness for some seriously sick sex jokes.

Hughes is too loveable to be nasty. His sharp material occasionally plunders the murkier realms of the mind, but his delivery’s so laidback it’s impossible to take offence. Jeffries is fists in the air when it comes to base humour; he probably thinks taboo is just booze for potential rape victims. Angry, het-up and not as drunk as the journalists he berates, Stanhope’s always value for money – and happy to let Rouse steal the spotlight, yelling prompts to his jet-lagged mate.

As the Fringe gets bigger and the term comedy gets broader, you can understand Hennigan’s desire for the subversive. Raw, drunk, addicted, afflicted and unafraid are the qualities Hennigan is looking for in his line-up. Its going to be hit-and-miss, but for the chance to catch a Rouse run in the UK, we owe him.